Ok, I did get a bit off track. OPPO hands down then, no contest. Stock SE version. Hope to get the 95 and mod it at Tweak Audio, it'll smoke just about anything. What's our deal, best for the least? agreed.

Oh so poetic, I forgot to mention hooking it up to the new ZEN ULTRA (the coolest piece of audio gear I have ever seen) with Three TORII MK III and 5 ZOB's and of course a OPPO 95 modded to hilt with VCAPS all around and last but not least attenuated volume controls, a must. Did I miss anything.

OK brash, I'm through talking about the Sony I was just alerting anyone who is interested in the Ultra to the great deal on the Sony which is a killer machine. And the trend for players is to move away from discrete analog outputs to multi-channel through HDMI, which won't help anyone with the Ultra.(Not to mention that most players are now built like a disposable piece of shit). Sorry, I've never been impressed with Oppo but I'm willing to believe that the model especially built for audio is one to target.

The Sony deal seems to be dried up so it's a moot point. So glad I have mine, I now have great Sony ES Blu-Ray sources for my two systems, and a Marantz as a back up. I'm good. I love Blu-Ray.

No, I have had for over three years the previous Sony ES Flagship, the BPD-S2000ES. It sometimes acts funky with Blu-Rays, and it's now in my second system where I mainly use it for cd playback (sounds pretty damned good with redbook cd, and makes DVDs look fantastic, I'm happy with it except when it won't play a Blu-Ray for some reason. It also has 7.1 discrete outputs and is built like a tank. I bought a Marantz 7034 at a price that was hard to say no to when this Sony started acting up, but it's actually inferior to the Sonys in all aspects: build, picture, sound. It's my backup BDP for both systems at the moment.

Gotcha. I still have access to a Sony at a good price and am still debating.

The hardest thing for me to assess is whether I will really get my money's worth in use out of it. Almost all of my listening is from ripped files on external RAID arrays attached to dedicated computers. I am continuing to work with a Synology NAS on my network at home, but am still not satisfied that the network performance is as good as standalone. I will shortly test a drive attached directly to the Oppo. I am hopeful on that. Having the Oppo for a front end and as a controller for my files would be nice.

So far, the Oppo is great for BluRay discs, SACD, and surround discs. Just not sure if a second player will deliver the right ROI. Decisions, decisions.

Lon, I think the Sony blu ray player your talking about is killer, as is the SACD player you have. I wish I had them both, as far as build quality it is a luxury to get audio gear with some heft to it. How does that Blu ray stack up against the SACD 5400 by the way sound wise on for CD play back comparison. I'm interested. I saw the 5400 for sale for around 1100.

I'm in love with the Sony SCD-XA5400ES. You know how it is with Decware systems, they show you so much of your source. I just couldn't relax into the music with the ZCD, the NAD T585 I had seemed better but I felt there was something missing, and then I took a chance on the SCD-XA5400ES and even before break-in I knew there was magic in this machine.

I'm not really sure what specifically it is, I think it's a combination of a few things. . . the build quality (it makes the Decware TEAC seem liek a toy), the DACs (they have to be good), the fact that apparently Redbook is sort of turned into DSD (not sure how that happens but from my reading that is sort of what happens), or the fact that strangely it appears there's no capacitor in the signal path, but the Redbook cd sound on this is outstanding. It's very detailed, but not fatiguing, and I can listen to the many recordings I have that are of lesser quality without obsessing about the sound, I can just relax into it. But when I listen to the reference stuff I have (mostly cds I've listened to on many systems and also recordings I made myself of bands I was in recorded in my then garage apartment) it's not as if they're smoothed over, everything is there. I can't speak more highly of this player. Even the Redbook cd sound from the ZDAC-1, which is VERY VERY GOOD, doesn''t best it in my opinion.

The BDP-S5000ES Blu-Ray player has very good sound for DVDs and Blu-Rays. On Redbook cd it just frankly does not have the magic that the SCD-XA5400ES has, I wish it does. It sounds VERY, VERY GOOD, similar (yet a bit more "rounded") sounding to the ZDAC-1. Which is a compliment. Really, it's sounding quite good for cds, but not quite like it's "twin" (their cases and faces are identical) the SCD-XA5400ES. I sound like a broken record because I gush whenever anyone asks me about the SCD-XA5400ES---I put it right up there with my Torii Mk III and CSP2 and IT Radials as components that I just can't imagine living without. Just the ticket for me and my desire to "set it and forget it."

If you can audition one, do so. Especially if you can get one that is pretty seasoned, or audition one for three or four hundred hours.

Lon, you are absolutely right that having the Decware signal path requires a good front end. Getting the Taboo and the ZStage into my system made me appreciate the decision to rip uncompressed, bit perfect files, and a quality DAC.

Steve has written more than once that you really cannot "over-upgrade" your system once you have a Decware amp in it. I don't think he put it in quite those terms, but the amps just keep revealing more as other flaws or shortcomings are revealed or rectified. On a computer based system, that means addressing file integrity, the DAC, clock/jitter, etc., and with the Decware signal path, it's all worthwhile.

Well, from my outlook and experience, I think way too much has been made of the "bit perfect cd" possible by computer to DAC route, if you were implying that route was somehow superior. I've heard a few implementations that are impressive but I'm still just as impressed with my sources. And I know that hi-res recordings can be amazing, but I'm just not going to obsess about the very best individual sounds, it's like tube-rolling, an addiction/obsession I just don't want to invite.

None-the-less I know that if were younger, and if I did not have 15.000 plus recordings on hand I'd be investing in that route. Still for me it makes little sense. If I were really going to pursue "the perfect sound" I'd pedal back to vinyl and phono pre-amplification. The problem for me is that I just can't find on vinyl the amount of music I want to listen to and many many specific titles, and I don't' love "the hunt" or "listening only to the very best recordings" mindsets enough to begin to develop them at this state of my life.

So until my ship comes in and I can invest in something like a Meitner or DCS front end, my current sources have enough magic to make me enjoy even lousy recordings and relax into the music. Mission accomplished for me. I respect anyone who has found the same satisfaction and accomplishment via other routes.

Seems to me that bringing in the Sony Player bargain and benefits fits quite well with both a primary intent of the Ultra, but also in the context of forums being tools for learning from, and helping one another...in this case, letting us know about a good multichannel player at a great price. Computer versus transport....hmmmm, maybe off the thread, but interesting. So I propose we work that over in its own thread. A few comments first, and then a link to a new thread for this discussion....Please join in!

No matter what circuits or transport mechanism we use to decode and convey CD data, in the beginning, it is just that....data. CD Players, a combined transport and DAC in a one box, are one of our options to get the data into music. But transports bring with them the issues of error correction and jitter, issues inherent to transports and the CDs themselves. So a big part of its job is extracting the data with as little error and jitter as possible, and then the DAC section removes or masks what remains, while converting the data into analog music.

Properly done, with a good computer and a good setup, errors and jitter are for the most part solved. Technically, in this, I think we have as good a beginning as is presently possible to get the CD data ready for the data-to-music conversion. Regardless of other circuit decisions, I can't conceive of any question as to the efficacy of eliminating the errors and jitter from the start.

With either method, choosing circuits and circuit paths to the end of what we like brings a designers preferred tonal attributes to the stuff that shows up at the output jacks.

Then, the fun part....the preferences of us listeners . It seems to me that this is really where the questions of personal tastes come in, and that this is separate from the questions of the technology. How satisfied are we with how the data became music within a given system?